Ralph Waldo Emerson, comp. (1803–1882). Parnassus: An Anthology of Poetry. 1880.
RosabelleSir Walter Scott (17711832)
O
No haughty feat of arms I tell;
Soft is the note, and sad the lay,
That mourns the lovely Rosabelle.
And, gentle lady, deign to stay!
Rest thee in Castle Ravensheuch,
Nor tempt the stormy firth to-day.
To inch and rock the sea-mews fly:
The fishers have heard the Water-Sprite,
Whose screams forebode that wreck is nigh.
A wet shroud swathed round lady gay;
Then stay thee, Fair, in Ravensheuch;
Why cross the gloomy firth to-day?”
To-night at Roslin leads the ball,
But that my lady-mother there
Sits lonely in her castle-hall.
And Lindesay at the ring rides well,
But that my sire the wine will chide
If ’tis not filled by Rosabelle.”
A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam;
’Twas broader than the watch-fire’s light,
And redder than the bright moonbeam.
It ruddied all the copse-wood glen;
’Twas seen from Dryden’s groves of oak,
And seen from caverned Hawthornden.
Where Roslin’s chiefs uncoffined lie,
Each baron, for a sable shroud,
Sheathed in his iron panoply.
Blazed every rose-carved buttress fair,—
So still they blaze when fate is nigh
The lordly line of high Saint Clair.
Lie buried within that proud chapelle;
Each one the holy vault doth hold,
But the sea holds lovely Rosabelle!
With candle, with book, and with knell;
But the sea-caves rung, and the wild winds sung
The dirge of lovely Rosabelle.